Treatment of diabetic retinopathy

Prevention should always be the initial treatment of diabetic retinopathy , by appropriate control of diabetes strict compliance with the treatment prescribed by the doctor and daily control of blood glucose levels to ensure they are within normal . Also, this control should extend to high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Only this will significantly reduce the risk of becoming develop diabetic retinopathy .

However, in cases in which diabetes has existed for at least ten years this risk is significant to the extent that the disease develops in 80-84% of cases, as in the case of diabetes type 1 or Type 2, respectively. When this occurs, it is usual to wait until the disease progresses and becomes a diabetic retinopathy proliferative to decide the most appropriate treatment, usually surgical. In this way you can use two different surgical techniques:

  

• Laser surgery: the laser is used to reduce the vessels which are formed with neovascularization and reduce an eventual macular edema. In this case the laser is used to cauterize the blood vessels on the retina and prevent their growth, while preserving the macula, thereby leakages of liquid reaching it and causing blurred vision is reduced. It can produce some recovery of vision, but usually this problem is not reversed. This type of surgery does not cure diabetic retinopathy , but it does help prevent complications such as vitreous hemorrhage or traction retinal detachment. Over time, several interventions of this type, always ambulatory may be necessary.

    

• Vitrectomy: this intervention should be performed in a hospital, it needs local anesthesia may require a short hospital stay, although usually it is done on an outpatient basis. Its objective is the removal of blood and scar tissue may have formed in the blood vessels, so that once again opens the way for the light to focus on the retina. Sometimes surgery involves filling the eye cavity with a special gas or serum in order to fix the retina of the eye walls and facilitate recovery, avoiding at the same time a possible traction retinal detachment.
    

Injected drugs

currently available drugs that are injected into the eye that can contribute to the treatment of diabetic retinopathy . Its function is to block what is called endothelial growth factor (VEGF) favoring the abnormal growth of blood vessels some cases, drugs may be used to aid in treatment of diabetic retinopathy .

Occasionally, steroid medications can be prescribed. In other cases, you may develop an anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF English). This treatment can help reduce macular swelling, leakage of fluid to the macula and the proliferation of abnormal blood vessels, thus helping to improve vision. Periodic (every four to six weeks) injection may be necessary.